Monthly Archives: December 2007

SiteA with UserX having Read permissions because of SiteA Visitor group membershipList in SiteA, with specific permission for UserX as Contributor. You will need to break permission inheritance to accomplish this on the List.

When UserX opens up the list and creates a new listitem, the user can no longer use the Spelling feature. Each time the user clicks the Spelling… button, he gets an error message displaying: “Spelling did not complete properly. If this problem persists, notify your system administrator”.

You can also repro this issue if you define Contribute permissions to the SiteA Visitor Group on the List.

This error is apparently due to the fact that the user does not have contribute permissions at the root level of the site and is known as a bug which should be addressed in SP1 for MOSS.

I reproduced this error on my test environment that does not have SP1 installed. – After the installation of WSS SP1, the behaviour was still the same. – After the installation of MOSS 2007 SPA, the error no longer occured.

So if you encounter this error in your environment, consider upgrading to MOSS SP1.

or you can even download a Portal edition, which allows you to go install this on your MOSS Server.

Now I prefer to go install this on my MOSS server, because that is the least effort for me (I don’t want to go install this at my End-User’s desktop. Hey I don’t want to see my End-user ever! )

I was a little sceptical at first about installing this on my Portal server, until I read through the deployment document accompanied with the download. This document explains the installation step-by-step, screen-by-screen even.

The installation took about 30 minutes to complete and I had a working training site for my End-Users.

What I liked most about installing this solution is that you get some hands-on experience in installing and deploying a SharePoint solution. I can imagine that not everybody does this on a daily bases.

So if you can install this at least once o a test MOSS server to see the advantages in this new feature.

These are the steps I take now for generating a fresh install of a MOSS 2007 server with the newly released SP1. My original idea was to slipstream the SP1 into the MOSS installation files, but I realized that you still need to install WSS 3.0 Service Pack 1 first.

So for me the following steps apply whe I install a new MOSS Server on a Windows Server 2003 machine:

Install IIS 6.0

enable .NET in IIS

use the commandline C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\aspnet_regiis.exe -enable -r on 32-bit systems

use the commandline C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50727\aspnet_regiis.exe -enable -r on 64-bit systems

According to KB article 905231, SharePoint has very specific reserved characters that are invalid for use in site names, subsite names, group names, folder names, and document names. This is frequently overlooked by SharePoint users. I would hazard a guess that many end users are not even aware of this information. How could users be aware of this when SharePoint lets users create content that contain these invalid characters? Please ensure that you and your fellow SharePoint users are aware of the following invalid characters:

Site Names

Do not use the following: | # { } % & <TAB>” ~ + \ / : * ? ” < >

Do not start a site name, subsite name, or a site group name with an underscore (_) or with the period character.

I recommend that you do not use an underscore or a period. While it is possible, there are some caveats, such as:

You cannot use the period character consecutively in the middle of a site name

You cannot use the period character at the end of a site name

Folder Names and File Names

Do not use: ” # % & * : < > ? \ / { | } ~

File names cannot be longer than 128 characters

Do not use the period character consecutively in the middle of a file name. For example, “file..name.docx” is invalid.

You cannot use the period character at the end of a file name

You cannot start a file name with the period character

Following is pulled directly from KB 905231 for reference.

Site names, subsite names, or site group names

•

You cannot use the following characters anywhere in a site name, in a subsite name, or in a site or Active Directory group name:

•

tilde (~)

•

number sign (#)

•

percent (%)

•

ampersand (&)

•

asterisk (*)

•

braces ({ })

•

backslash (\)

•

colon (:)

•

angle brackets (< >)

•

question mark (?)

•

slash (/)

•

plus sign (+)

•

pipe (|)

•

quotation mark (“)

•

You cannot start a site name, subsite name, or a site group name with an underscore (_) character or with the period character.

•

You cannot use the period character consecutively in the middle of a site name, a subsite name, or a site group name.

•

You cannot use the period character at the end of a site name, a subsite name, or a site group name.

Folder names

•

You cannot use the following characters anywhere in a folder name or a server name:

•

tilde

•

number sign

•

percent

•

ampersand

•

asterisk

•

braces

•

backslash

•

colon

•

angle brackets

•

question mark

•

slash

•

pipe

•

quotation mark

•

You cannot use the period character consecutively in the middle of a folder name.

•

You cannot use the period character at the end of a folder name.

•

You cannot start a folder name with the period character.

File names

•

You cannot use the following characters anywhere in a file name:

•

tilde

•

number sign

•

percent

•

ampersand

•

asterisk

•

braces

•

backslash

•

colon

•

angle brackets

•

question mark

•

slash

•

pipe

•

quotation mark

•

You cannot use the period character consecutively in the middle of a file name.

Ok here is my setup that I am about to patch. Server 1 is the SQL 2005 SP2 database box. Server 2 is a Windows Server 2003 SP2 with MOSS 2007 Enterprise installed. I am doing everything on Server 2. I give you run times on the longer parts for reference points. Your times will vary!

Click Next at the Completing the SharePoint Product and Technologies Configuration Wizard

Your server is now processing step 1

You will be prompted to now install the updates on other servers in your farm. Click OK since you only have 1 SharePoint server.

NOTE: If you did have multiple servers you would repeat all of the above steps on each of those servers before moving on. Also, if you are wondering you should probably start with the server that host central admin.

Now your server is processing steps 2 through 9.

Speaking of step 8 it took my server approximately 13 minutes to process 4.4 GB of content. I am sure your times will vary. Just don’t panic on this step if it takes a while. It is essentially touching all of your content.

At Configuration Successful click Finish

Check out Central Admin

Restart the World Wide Web Publishing service you stopped in step 2. If you had to reboot this is not necessary.

Click Operations tab

Under Topologies and Services click Servers in farm

Next to your server you should see Version 12.0.0.6219 not 12.0.0.4518. If you do you should be good to go.

As a moss administrator I am often confronted with questions that need some research and testing. For this I am always using a virtual MOSS environment. I recently stumbled upon a post that explains all the steps for creating a complete MOSS 2007 VPC image. I know it is still a Virtual PC image and not a VMWare image, but hey, you VMWare guys have VMWare Converter for that, right [8-|].

So go have a look at the complete post for setting up your MOSS 2007 VPC Image.